


Growing Pains

by Spirit_catcher



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: 23-year-old virgin Katsuki Yuuri, Canon-Compliant, Demisexual Yuuri, Established Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Growth, Katsuki Yuuri is demisexual fight me, Katsuki Yuuri was a virgin before Victor, M/M, Personal Growth, Podium Family, Protective Victor Nikiforov, VictUuri, Yuuri wins gold, canon-compliant Yuri on Ice, kind Victor Nikiforov, previous injury, slight angst but really fluff, viktuuri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-05
Updated: 2018-03-05
Packaged: 2019-03-27 07:03:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13875675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spirit_catcher/pseuds/Spirit_catcher
Summary: Yurio struggles with his skating as a physically growing teenager.





	Growing Pains

**Author's Note:**

> Forgive me, I haven't proofread this, I just had to get it out! One minute I was working on my interim report, next thing I know I was frantically trying to get all of this down before it escaped my head!
> 
> As always, Yuri's lack of usual expletives is so this stays PG!

"Yuri... What happened out there?"

The teenager visibly stiffened, but otherwise ignored the Japanese skater. Yuuri was used to this, so decided to proceed anyway. But not without caution. He paused where he stood on the other side of the room from Yuri, trying to carefully choose words that would be least likely to trigger throwing of objects. But it was the younger skater who spoke first.

"Congrats on your marriage."

Yuuri could only blink stupidly. "What?"

"You finally won gold. You can get married now."

"I... yes", Yuuri conceded, not sure where the Yuri was going with this. "But probably not just yet. We haven't talked about it much yet, but we were thinking about waiting until we've both retired. When things aren't so chaotic, you know?"

Yuri scoffed.

"What, you think our lives aren't chaotic now?" Yuuri asked, grinning and leaning back against the wall of lockers. 

"Your's aren't." Yuri's words were barely audible, but still made Yuuri freeze.

"What?"

"Your lives. Your's and Victor's. They aren't chaotic."

Yuuri huffed a laugh. "Compared to whose? Yakov's? I'll admit we all put him through quite a bit."

"No, mine!" Yuri span around and all but yelled at him across the changing room.

Yuuri was silent for a moment, then decided this was the closest to an invitation he - or anyone, for that matter - was going to get. "Are you ready to talk about what happened out there today?"

"What's to talk about?" Yuri spat out bitterly, turning away again. "You saw. Everyone saw. I only got bronze." 

"Bronze is still good. It means you are the third best male figure skater in the world. That's hardly -"

Yuri sneered. "You don't get to talk like that. Not when you just got gold at Worlds."

"Yuri, I'm used to your attitude, but frankly I have better things to do today than hide out in a back room being sassed by a pubescent teenager. Are you ready to talk or not?"

It was 'pubescent' more than anything else that made Yuri snap then and there. 

"I'm growing, okay? I'm growing! Everything is changing and my feels all wrong. I'm in the middle of a growth spurt right in time for Worlds and I don't know when it will end or if I'll ever be able to skate the same way again!"

Yuuri said nothing, either with words or expression. 

"... Wait. You already knew." They both knew it wasn't a question. Yuri looked at Yuuri, waiting for an explanation.

"Of course we know", Yuuri sighed. "How could we not notice?"

"Wait, 'we'? Victor knows as well?!"

Yuuri gave him a faintly amused look. "Of course we both know. You spend half your spare time at our apartment. We could hardly not notice you eating all our food. And you asked me to measure you last week despite measuring day not being due. You'd grown 4cm in three weeks. Not to mention Victor and I went through puberty at about the same age, and also while skating competitively. We don't know exactly what it's like for you, but... we do get what it's like to go through."

"Oh", Yuri breathed out softly, only just realising he'd been holding his breath. There was a very pregnant pause. And then Victor walked in. 

"Yuuri! There you are! I wondered where you'd got to!" Victor, still wearing his silver medal, immediately went to hug his fiancé. Yuuri didn't bother hiding his exasperation as he pulled Victor up short and directed his attention with a look at Yurio over the far side of the room. 

"Hi, Yuri. How are you feeling?" 

"How do you think I'm feeling?" Yuri snapped. "I lost!"

"You didn't lose", Victor said calmly, dropping his skates and shucking on his official Team Russia jacket. "And that's not what I was asking. How is your body feeling? Growing pains suck, and that fall you took out there didn't look fun, either."

Yuri glared at him with all the malice he could muster, but otherwise chose to not reply.

"Yakov already knows", Victor said, not meeting anyone's eyes as he stuffed his gear into his sports bag. He's in his office working on an adjusted training schedule for you, Yuri. Probably increased ballet and flexibility training to help get your skating through this period of most rapid growth."

"You told Yakov?!" Yuri howled, actually grabbing locks of his blonde hair and pulling them violently.

"Woah, Yurio, no need to scalp yourself!" Victor said quickly, picking up Yuri's discarded skates and dropping them at their owner's feet. "And for the last time, don't leave your skates where I want to sit." Victor sat down heavily in the newly vacated space.

"Well sorry, it's not like I knew you wanted to sit there", Yuri replied, not sounding sorry at all. "And my name's not Yurio!"

"Victor... You told Yakov? Without talking to Yuri first?" Yuuri's eyes shone with unspoken disappointment.

"What?" Victor looked taken aback. "No, of course not. Yakov already knew. He's trained countless teenagers over God knows how many years. He would have been waiting for your growth spurt to start." Victor finished unlacing his skates and looked directly up at Yuri. "Why didn't you just go to him in the first place rather than trying to hide it from him?"

Yuri's lip curled and he looked at Victor like the other was crazy. Finally, he said "I didn't want everyone to know."

Victor looked at Yuri, an unreadable expression on his usually open face. "Puberty happens to everyone. It's a coach's job to help skaters through it. Did you think everyone would find out and leave you? Or your competition use it to eat you alive? Whatever your reasoning, everyone will know now. We all saw you out there this Worlds."

Yuri stared at him stonily. "So I could have handled it better. We can't all be perfect like you."

Victor actually laughed at that, but very bitterly. Yuri stared at him, gobsmacked. 

"I don't know if either of you followed me enough back then to notice, but between the ages of 17 and 21 I pretty much didn't compete. Yakov wouldn't allow me to. At the time I thought that not competing would kill me, but pushing myself to compete anyway nearly killed my skating."

"I wondered why you didn't seem to compete for a few years", Yuuri said slowly, reminding Yuri that the Japanese man was still in the room with them. "I thought maybe you got injured, or something."

"Both, actually", Victor admittedly, moving over on the bench so his fiancé could sit down next to him. "I wanted so badly to keep skating just as I always had. Or maybe I was too arrogant, thought I was such a unique and gifted skater that puberty wouldn't affect me. I pushed myself to continue even though I knew I should let Yakov change my training and routines. I finally injured myself seriously enough that I thought it was the end of my career."

"I... never knew", Yuri said flatly, shoving his fists into his tracksuit pockets.

"No, well, we didn't exactly want it broadcasted to the world. Instead, Yakov put me through more yelling and physiotherapy than I care to recall. Then we spent 4 years restoring my flexibility and relearning what I considered to be "lesser" figure skating skills... Things I had previously taken for granted. Learning to do the same compulsory figures all over again but with a different body and bigger limitations after injury that I would not have had if I had listened to Yakov in the first place..." 

The three of them sat in silence, none of them sure how long. 

Victor shrugged, then stood up abruptly. "Don't make the same mistake as me, Yuri."


End file.
